Google Nexus 4 review

Google is back with its latest smartphone. With a little help from LG, the Nexus 4 is the flagship Android phone. Read our Google Nexus 4 review to find out more.

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Google Nexus 4
full review

After previously partnering with HTC and Samsung for its smartphones, Google has turned to LG for the Nexus 4. There's plenty of competition in the smartphone market from Android handsets, not to mention the iPhone so what has the Nexus 4 got to stand out from the crowd? Find out in our Google Nexus 4 review. Check out our Google Nexus 10 review.

Google Nexus 4: Design

From the front, the Nexus 4 looks extremely similar to the previous Nexus smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The handset is pretty much exactly the same size and the only thing obviously interrupting the glossy black finish is the front facing camera. For a smartphone this size, the Nexus 4 is suitable thin and light at 9.1mm and 139g. See also: Google LG Nexus 4 vs Apple iPhone 5 comparison review.

The Nexus 4 feels great in the hand, a true premium smartphone. There's a silver bezel around the screen and flip the phone over and you'll find a unique surprise. Instead of a flimsy plastic cover which the Galaxy Nexus had, there's a glossy finish flat back with a finish that's a bit different to the usual.

The black rear has a matrix of tiny silver dots, each reflect light at different angles. Keep the Nexus 4 still and you'll just see certain dots but it comes to life as soon as you move it. On the one hand looking like some kind of holographic screen and on the other looking like it's been painted with glitzy nail polish. Opinions around the PC Advisor office on the finish are very split. Group test: what's the best Android phone?

We were initially a bit worried about the glossy finish of the Nexus 4, making it quite a slippery handset. However, between the front and back of the phone is a frame with a grippy rubbery finish. This doesn't help when you, for example, put the Nexus 4 on the arm of a fabric sofa though – it will slide off unless you balance it perfectly. Group test: what's the best smartphone?

Google Nexus 4: Build quality

Since there's no removable cover the battery is not accessible and the microSIM card tray is located on the side like the iPhone 5. The phone feels much more sturdy and well-built with this method. It's one of the reasons the Nexus 4 feels so good in the hand.

Build quality is nothing short of exceptional. The Nexus 4 is the easily the most well-built Android smartphone we've seen in a long time. The screen sits neatly flush to the bezel, the microSIM card tray slots in perfectly with no gaps and the buttons have a smooth action. It's all these little things that add up to make the Nexus 4 desirable. Our review sample came from O2.

It's already quite astonishing, then, that a phone with a desirable design and excellent build-quality costs just £239 SIM-free. And we haven't even got started on the hardware yet. It makes sense with the Nexus 7, but we don't know exactly why Google has chosen to sell a smartphone this cheap, but then again who cares?

Google Nexus 4: Price

We don't normally give price its own section within a review but the Nexus 4 deserves it. At £239 for 8GB and £279 for 16GB, it's no wonder the Nexus 4 sold out on the Google Play Store within an hour of going on sale.

Getting a phone free on a contract is nice and normally necessary to get your hands on a top-flight smartphone without your bank balance taking a serious hit. The Nexus 4 is a game changer in the sense that it allows consumers to get a high-end smartphone for an affordable price minus the contrast of a lengthy contract. Therefore, you can select a SIM-only deal to suit your needs which can be changed almost whenever you like.

Google Nexus 4: Hardware

At a distinctly mid-range price it would be understandable if the Nexus 4 had a very mid-range set of hardware. However, this smartphone quite simply offers a high-end specification for the price of a phone which would normally cost half as much.

Inside the Nexus 4 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, a quad-core chip clocked at a healthy 1.5GHz. Like a lot of the latest high-end smartphones, there's 2GB of RAM. This is impressive on paper and in our benchmarks.

The Nexus 4 set a new record in the GeekBench 2 test. It is the first smartphone to score over 2,000 points with an average of 2009. This beats the iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 which scored 1650, 1659 and 1958.

In the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark the Nexus 4 couldn't beat the aforementioned rivals with a score of 1906ms. However, we didn't find web browsing felt slow at all. In a side-by-side test with the iPhone 5, the Nexus 4 loaded some sites quicker and some sites slightly slower.

On the graphics side of things the Nexus 4 managed an iPhone 5 matching frame rate of 39fps in GLBenchmark – effectively the peak of this test.

Google has stuck with the same screen size as the Galaxy Nexus, 4.7in although the Galaxy was technically 4.65in. The resolution has gone up few pixels to 768 x 1280, almost matching the iPhone 5 for pixel density at 318ppi.

The screen looks stunning with excellent contrast, rich colours and detail. We found it performed particularly well and better than most when outdoors in sunlight. Viewing angles are incredible too, thanks to the in-plane switching (IPS) panel.

Storage has to be the biggest downfall of the Nexus 4. Google only offers 8GB and 16GB models with no microSD card slot. You also need to bear in mind that not all of this capacity will be available since the operating system and pre-loaded apps inevitably require a chunk of it. Our 16GB sample had around 13GB free.

However, internal storage is becoming less of a problem these days. For example music fans can access their entire collections via the cloud with services like Amazon Cloud Player and now, Google Play Music. The obvious drawback is the need for a good data connection so if you require more storage than 16GB then you'll need to look elsewhere.

The Nexus 4 is jammed with connectivity including dual-band Wi-Fi (with support for Wi-Fi Direct), Bluetooth 4.0, an NFC (near-field communications) chip and wireless charging. You can also connect the handset to an external display a SlimPort HDMI adapter.

There's no support for 4G mobile data in the UK, but with 4G barley off the ground and currently overpriced this isn't too much of a big deal. We wouldn't be surprised if Google released a 4G version of the Nexus 4 next year.